A Beach
by Rabble Rouser
Summary: Just a bit of fluff written to make my friend and beta Djinn smile, and the last of my old Trek stories to archive here. Think Chapel "belongs to Spock"? Well, spare me. Pass this one on by. Just noodling here and not seeking to make converts. But if you do like the idea of this pairing, go look up Djinn on Fanfic Net and you'll hit the motherlode.


**Story Notes:**

**Disclaimer:** © 2005 harmony bites. All rights reserved. This work may not be archived, reproduced, or distributed in any format without prior written permission from the author. This is an amateur non-profit work and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by Paramount or any other lawful holder.

Just a ficlet of Kirk/Chapel fluff written to make _Djinn_ smile.

**A Beach...**

Chapel stood at the doorway of the pre-fab hut she and Kirk shared. She held her hated boots in one hand. Not that Kirk had told her she had to keep to regulation. But even in this tropical heat he always kept to the full uniform in front of her. Just as he kept himself clean shaven even if it meant doing it with nothing but a film of soap and a honed knife. She winced every time she saw him do it, afraid he'd cut his own throat some day. Well, tracking in some wet sand wasn't going to do any harm. Might even remind him there was a very nice beach to walk on not ten feet away. Even on the ship there was time off. Your own time. Without uniforms, without having to take orders. And she was tired of being Nurse Chapel without a break.

She ducked her head and entered and saw him sitting on his cot on his side of the divider. She felt a lurch at the sight of him that was one part desire and one part anger that he was inspiring it. She gave him a cool nod. "Captain...I"

He looked at her and the boots in her hand and shook his head. She felt herself stiffen and saw him take that in. He looked down and traced his uniform braid with a finger. Then he took off the gold uniform shirt, balled it up and threw it into a corner, leaving him clad only in the regulation black t-shirt underneath. With an indrawn breath, she drank in the sight of him, unwillingly admiring how the thin t-shirt stretched over muscle.

Only a month ago she would not have noticed. If anything, her thought on first meeting Kirk was that he was just too good looking. And worse he knew it. But he was impossible to dismiss as some shallow Lothario. Not when she had seen how much he was willing to do for Spock or McCoy. Not when she had watched his face as he held his wife's hand as she died. Not when over the last weeks he had joked with her, gave her purpose by insisting they thoroughly survey and examine the lush life around them, kept up her hopes they would be found.

She couldn't help but notice though that the one thing he didn't give her was the use of his first name. She'd tested that with a "sir" and "captain" and he had taken that as his due. It had gnawed at her and in the last week she had grown increasingly silent. Answering when spoken to, but only the bare minimum that wouldn't get her a reprimand.

"Jim. Not Captain, Jim."

She started at that thinking it wasn't just Spock apparently that could read minds.

He looked up at her, his lips twitching upward but not quite smiling. "Chris, I'm sorry. I'm used to keeping the shields up, protecting myself and others. I told myself we both needed—that now more than ever we needed the structure. That you needed Captain Kirk, not Jim. You haven't pushed but..."

She sat down carefully on the cot. Close beside him but not touching. Her voice crackled with all she had long left unsaid. "How could I? There's all that rank between us. And I'd been made so aware of my place up there. Nurse, would you mind, please?" She put all the impatience, all the dismissal she remembered into the phrase. "Remember that? From McCoy? Telling me to leave." She shook her head at his puzzled look. "No, I suppose you don't remember. It was after you and Spock came back from Vulcan. Those words wouldn't burn into you like they did me."

"Bones was just trying to respect Spock's privacy."

"Bull." She almost smiled at his expression. It was as if he didn't know she knew even a mild curse. "I knew. I knew what was happening with Spock. I was there when McCoy examined him. I know exo-endocrinology—better than McCoy does. I knew Spock was experiencing some kind of mating drive, and a homing drive. I told Spock we were going to Vulcan. I helped bring you back to life. I saw the bruises on your neck. The result of a mating fight?"

"I couldn't say." But his hand suddenly rubbing at this throat and his blank look was all the answer she needed.

"I was there in sickbay for his speech about the 'crime' of which he was guilty—your death at his hands. I was there for that smile. What McCoy did was to remind me despite all that I'm part of the scenery. There to care for your hurts, patch all of you up so you can all do your best to be killed—especially you—and then be dismissed, excluded—"

"I'm sure McCoy didn't mean to hurt you. And you never showed him it did. Did you?"

"It wasn't the first or last time—"

He shook his head sharply and cut her off with a gesture. "I'm not going to apologize for McCoy or Spock. That's between you and them. I'm not going to apologize for the past either. I needed those barriers. I'm allowed to be close to my CMO and my First. In fact, it's practically required. And they're safely male." He tipped up her head with a single finger and suddenly she was glad she was sitting down because of what that slight touch was doing to her. "But I'm not supposed to notice those intense blue eyes, or how your smile lights up your face or...or any number of things." His tone wasn't insinuating but matter of fact but seemed all the more seductive for that.

She captured his hand in hers and brought it down between them. "Now any port in a storm?"

"Now I realize I've been unfair. We've been here a month. The truth is I can't know how much longer we'll be here. I can't shut you out. As much for my own sanity as yours. We're human, you and I. It's not a matter of male and female." He squeezed her hand, entwined his fingers with hers. "We need touch, intimacy, warmth."

"And now that I'm the only female on the entire planet, and you're the only male..." And wasn't it that after all? She had never felt attracted to him before they wound up on this planet. In this situation out of one of Janice's bad romance novels. It's just that he was here. She couldn't let this happen again. _Please, God, no_. Another crush. Another hopeless love. At least this time there was no virus that was going to force her to admit anything to him.

He sighed, released her hand. "I'm asking for a truce. To an end of the tension, the distance that's grown between us."

She blinked back tears. "Or in other words, even if you were the last woman on Earth—the only one on this planet—I wouldn't be interested."

He looked irritated. "Why do you say that? Why would you even think that?"

"Why shouldn't I? You know, for the most part Spock treated me as an embarrassment—a reminder of all those messy emotions. Except for one time. The time he was in that mating rut and it looked like he wasn't going to make it to Vulcan in time. I went to him to tell him we were going there. He told me he had the strangest dream and the way he looked at me... He said we shouldn't protest against our natures and his voice—his voice was different. Sultry, seductive. He practically stalked me. I suppose he expected me to fall into his arms. But I didn't want that. I didn't want him because he was a slave to a biological urge. So I told him you had changed course for Vulcan. And he never spoke to me again like a man who desired a woman."

"Chris." He took her face between his hands and leaned toward her. He took his time, tracing her lips with his tongue, than pressing his lips to hers, one hand caressing her cheek, the other tangling in her hair. She made a sound something between a moan and a whimper when he broke the kiss. His hands which he dropped to her shoulders seemed to be all that was keeping her from coming apart. "See? I'm by no means immune. Something told me you wouldn't just take my word for it."

"But you stopped."

He smiled that heartbreaking smile, just for her. "It wasn't easy. But not a good idea for now. Don't you think? In case they find us soon. But I'm not indifferent—at all."

"And I'm not the woman anyone would go crazy over?" she said bitingly. "Break the rules for?"

"Chris," he said, the one word conveying affection and exasperation at once.

She told herself to keep it light, but it was far too late for that. "I'm tired of being the afterthought, the one who always loves the most, sacrifices everything and gets back so little."

He drew her against him, and with a sigh she let him, indulged herself and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Roger?"

"Roger didn't make up a mechanical Christine did he? He created Andrea instead."

He began to stroke her back, a far away sound in his voice. "I'm not sure how much of Roger there was in the machine. But I do know one thing. If you love someone. That kind of sham, imitation can be only make the pain worse. I'd much rather have the memory of the real thing. Remember there wasn't much to Andrea. No real personality."

"So she was an inflatable doll?" She surprised herself when she laughed. In his arms it seemed safe to laugh about it.

"I think something like that. And you can't love that. Something designed to want you, to comply, but that can't really choose you."

"It doesn't matter. Even the flesh and blood Roger. I was the student who sat at his feet and worshipped him but not something he ever took trouble for, you know?"

"A man whose feelings don't run deep." He drew back and stopped the back rub. She found she didn't like that. "Another who won't acknowledge he even has them?"

"It does seem a pattern with me. But then I'm a woman who doesn't know how to pull back. I always love more than I'm loved. I think the idea of someone who would passionately love me scares me. Because I'm not sure what that would invoke in me. Does that scare you?" Looking at his eyes widen she thought maybe it did. But then he shot her a cocky grin. She leaned back in and kissed him hard. Ran her hand down his torso with only that thin material barring her touch. She shot him a look full of confidence and mischief. He caught her hand.

"Witch. You're not making this easy."

Her smile was wicked. "Maybe I want to make it hard?" She kicked the damned boots clear across the room. Then got up and stripped off her own uniform and flung it on her cot, leaving her clad—barely decently—in her Starfleet regulation underwear.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, Jim, if you're shedding the uniform I am too. It's way too hot for that gear. I'm going for a swim." She took him by a hand and yanked. "Join me?"

He swallowed. "Very hard."

**The End.**


End file.
